


Adieu

by greenstuff



Series: I know not everything is possible [3]
Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-29 12:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17807957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenstuff/pseuds/greenstuff
Summary: Adam knows he should be too busy grieving to notice how Tony’s tie is just the tiniest bit askew, but it is, and his fingers are practically itching to reach out and straighten it.





	1. Adieu

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a long time coming. I'm sorry for all the angst. See end notes for possible triggers, or feel free to contact me directly if you want more detail before reading. 
> 
> Rating may change for part 2.

**Anne Marie**

“Adam is coming.” Tony says from the doorway of Jean Luc’s hospital room.

Considering the larger context (Annemarie’s father is so riddled with cancer by now she barely recognizes him, and the doctors are talking about palliative care in terms of hours instead of weeks) it shouldn’t matter. But it does. Adam is alive.

The shock gives way to something she prefers not to name in the space of a sharp breath. Maybe it’s the carefully neutral set of Tony Belardi’s features when he says ‘Adam’, or its the natural guilt she feels nearly two years past the sobering realization that Adam’s alleged death was at least partly her fault, or maybe she really did love Adam once... whatever the cause, Tony’s words release a thousand frantic butterflies in her stomach. “When?”

“He caught the first flight he could out of America.” Tony checks his watch and adds, “It will be here in six hours.”

“I didn’t realize you two stayed in touch.” The words feel like a jealous monster clawing its way from her throat.

Tony looks at her without quite meeting her eye. “I think I was Amends in his 12-step program.”

“He’s clean then?” She’s glad for him, she _is_. She’s also hurt she hadn’t even received a token ‘by the way, I’m not dead’. He and Tony hadn’t even been close. Yes, Tony had drooled a fair bit in Adam’s direction, but she’d never seen them really interact beyond that. Then again... her memory of those days has some gaps that will never be filled.

“He didn’t contact you?”

Tony’s evident shock is more gratifying than it probably should be. At least she’s not the only one who feels she should have been a stop on the Adam Jones’ apology tour. “No. I heard he died in Amsterdam two years ago. Never really had reason to doubt it until today.” She shrugs as if it doesn’t matter. As if hearing Adam Jones, one of the most vibrant lives she’d ever touched, was dead hadn’t been the thing to begin her long road to recovery. As if learning he isn’t dead after all, but doesn’t want her forgiveness either, isn’t a shot of ice through her veins.

“It was a surprise for me too.” Tony admits. 

“Good surprise or bad?” It’s a bitchy thing to say, but Annemarie thinks she’s entitled to a little bitchiness right now.

“It’s too soon to tell,” Tony replies with the faintest hint of a smile.

On the bed between them, Jean Luc turns his head restlessly but doesn’t wake. Anne Marie takes one his hands in both of hers. “You should get some sleep, Tony. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Tony presses a brotherly kiss against her hair and lightly squeezes Jean Luc’s shin. “If you need anything...”

“I have your number.” She doesn’t move or tear her eyes away from the sunken face slumbering before her until long after the crisp, even tapping of Tony’s shoes fades to silence.

 “Adam is coming, papa.” She says at last in a low voice before resting her forehead against the rail of the bed and bursting into tears.

It was Jean Luc who called Tony. Anne Marie would have waited until it was too late for him to come. Not out of malice or spite, but this loss was private and deeper than she could have imagined, and she hadn’t wanted to hold anyone else’s hands through the stages of grief when she was just trying to hold it together one breath at a time. But Jean Luc insisted, and she couldn’t deny him anything, so she called.  Tony, being Tony, had arrived at the hospital with soup for her and a stack of the worst chef applications he’d received in the last five years to amuse her father. She hated him just a little for being the first one to make Jean Luc really smile (not that wane tilt of the lips that never touched his sad, pained eyes) in weeks.

And now Adam is coming. Somehow, she doesn’t think smiling will be on the menu. There was a time when Jean Luc loved Adam like a son, but those rosy Paris days are dead and gone.

It’s been three days since Annemarie left the hospital. Her hair is slicked into a braid with at least as much natural grease as leftover product holding every strand in place. She thinks she changed clothes yesterday while the nurse cleaned Jean Luc, but the days are a bit of a blur, it might have been two days.  She smooths her hands over the wrinkled grey of her trousers and wishes irrationally she had time to shower and change into something brighter.

Jean Luc wakes when the nurse comes in at ten after six. His eyes roam the room, disoriented, until they land on Anne Marie. His expression brightens with something like surprise and it wrenches at her chest. The pain, the drugs, or the cancer, she doesn’t know which, keeps robbing time from her father’s mind, dragging him back to when she was the last person he would expect at his bedside. It’s a daily reminder of all the times and ways she’s failed him.

She picks up the dull pink plastic glass of water from the tray at his bedside and holds it close so Jean Luc can sip from the straw. “This’ll help your throat.” Her own throat is thick with suppressed tears and her voice comes out husky.

“You came after all,” he says after taking a long drink from the cup. “I told you you needn’t. It’s only a minor procedure. I’ll be back in fine form next week.”

Ten years ago, when Anne Marie was in her second year of university and first year mourning the death of her mother, Jean Luc had his appendix removed. He’d told her there was no reason to come. It was exam time, so she’d taken him at his word and stayed away. Today is not the first day Jean Luc has woken believing that surgery is why he’s in hospital. But repetition hasn’t lessened the sting.

“Of course I’m here, papa.” She places his water back on the table with one hand while the other squeezes her father’s arm gently.

He smiles at her. “You look so much like her.”

Anne Marie has always thought she was an almost even blend of her parents. She looks like an artist had tried to capture both of them in equal measure, her mother’s features with her father’s height and colouring. Her mother was fair, lightly freckling every summer despite the thick sunscreen she insisted on. Jean Luc’s skin is darker, tanning easily. His eyes are deep chocolate and warm. Anne Marie inherited the colour but not the warmth. Her eyes appraise everything, cool and distant, exactly like her shrewd mother’s once did.

“She was proud of you, you know.”

Anne Marie smiles as best she can. Her mother was proud, ten year ago, before the expulsion from Cambridge, the failed business which ate 70% of her trust fund, the drugs, the men, the abortion. Her mom **was** proud of her, but only because she died when Anne Marie was nineteen. Before Anne Marie was a fully formed person capable only of destroying everything she loved.

—

Adam somehow looks exactly the same and like a different person all at once. It’s the eyes she decides after at least fifteen seconds of open staring. They’re still too blue to be real, but now they’re steady. He lets her be the first to break eye contact and to speak.

“Did Tony go back to the hotel?” It’s a banal question. Not one she even cares about the answer to but her voice comes out steady, so at least there’s that.

“He’s parking.” Adam shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “He thought... your father..?”

“You’re in time.” Annemarie feels a sudden rush of affection. “He’s sleeping but you can wake him.”

Adam hesitates a moment before reaching to squeeze her shoulder in a brief, grounding touch. She can’t help but sway into it just a bit, but she immediately steps back against the wall and gestures for Adam to go into Jean Luc’s room. She doesn’t follow immediately, leaning instead against the cool white wall and listening to the indistinct rumbling of their voices. If she focused she could probably make out the words, but she doesn’t try - almost is afraid to.

Her father always loved Adam, even when... but she survived, is stronger for surviving, so there is no point dwelling on any of it. Besides, Jean Luc seems stuck years before any of that, in the rosy days when Anne Marie was his joy and Adam his pride. Back then.... well, regardless, It was good then. Jean Luc will not remain with them long, his last days should be happy. So she stands there, silent tears dripping from her chin to the sounds of Adam’s quiet rumbling, the quick bark of her Father’s laughter - sounds she hasn’t heard in years and has never let herself admit to missing.

She sees Tony round the corner at the far end of the corridor and quickly swipes the tears off her face. She can do this. For Jean Luc she can pretend and smile and be the Anne Marie who hasn’t ruined everything five times over. She owes her father at least that. And it won’t be for long.

**Tony**

They bury Jean Luc on a Tuesday.

It’s sunny. Hot. Beautiful. Completely wrong for a funeral.

Adam looks incredible in his suit. Tony hadn’t quite realized how bad things really were in Paris until he saw Adam at the airport – looking so healthy he fucking glowed. And now Adam stands there in the bright sunshine, looking more beautiful than any man has a right to. He has one arm wrapped around Anne Marie, who looks as wretched as Adam does wonderful, and it seems like she might crumple into the grass without his support. Tony forces his eyes away, gluing them to the priest and trying not to think too hard about how very strange it is to see Adam standing strong instead of letting Anne Marie pull him down.  

He doesn’t even question why he can’t stop thinking of Adam – that has been a constant for far too long. Their correspondence made it… not worse, because Tony didn’t think anything could be worse than the way his heart bounced between hope and despair in the hours, days, months, _years_ since That Night. Not worse, but _different_. Somehow knowing Adam was an ocean away, yet as close as his inbox ripped off the door he’d been unsuccessfully slamming shut at least twice a day for so many days he couldn’t count them if he tried.

Their emails aren’t anything special. Not objectively. But they changed things for Tony. Paris taught him that Adam was unreliable, dangerous, reckless, selfish, and a host of other things Tony would never be able to overcome no matter how deeply he sank into the affection which became obsession and then addiction. The Adam who wrote to the void of Tony’s inbox for days, sometimes brief and humorous, often wistful, sometimes long and almost too painful for Tony to read, was not the Adam who left Tony in his bed. He’s not the Adam who lied his way into a job at Jean Luc’s restaurant and then worked 20 hours a day to make the lie into truth. The Adam in his inbox is some parts of both of these men, but mostly he’s someone new.  Someone who might be reliable, responsible, perhaps even... kind, still a little selfish, but in that way people who crave absolution and acceptance can be selfish, reaching out for any kind of contact no matter how little the object of this attention reciprocates.  He isn’t the Adam Tony loved, but maybe…

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

The funeral comes to an end without Tony hearing more than ten words of it and Adam leads the way back to the small line of cars along the edge of the cemetery, Anne Marie tucked tightly against his side. They’re beautiful together. Tony tells himself he’s happy. It’s a lie, but Tony is good at lying to himself about Adam.

He’s only just opened the car door when someone suggests one of the cheap, dingy pubs they all used to congregate at after a particularly gruelling shift. Tony wants to decline, claim business or headache or simply smile and wave and drive off so he doesn’t have to spend another three hours watching Anne Marie and Adam cuddle in a dim pub. But Adam tucks Anne Marie into the back seat of Reece’s tiny four-seater and gestures for Tony to wait and there’s no chance he’s going to say no.

Adam’s eyes fix on Tony through the car window, so blue and intense Tony thinks he would look away if he could. There are dark circles beneath them and they are red rimmed, but despite the obvious fatigue and sorrow, Adam’s eyes are entirely focused on Tony and it’s a bit like the earth has dropped out from beneath Tony’s feet. No, this isn’t the Adam he once loved, but this is a man he could very easily fall for all over again.

**Adam**

Adam is sad. He _is._ Jean Luc looms so large in Adam’s personal history it doesn’t seem possible that the man they just put in the ground could once have been him. That frail man kept alive only by a series of tubes, wires, and pumps who had slipped from life not twelve hours after Adam arrived on a tarmac in Paris (who had been so addled by pain and medication that he hadn’t remembered all of the bad times and the reasons Adam wanted to day thank you and I’m sorry and I didn’t mean it and I owe you every good thing in my life) was a stranger. Adam is sad, but somehow sad is buried deep under confused and hurt and want and whywon’tTonylookatme? Adam knows he should be too busy grieving to notice how Tony’s tie is just the tiniest bit askew, but it is, and his fingers are practically itching to reach out and straighten it.

The casual intimacy of such a gesture is completely impossible, of course. Tony has been perfectly polite. As if Adam is just some guy who knew Jean Luc. As if they are strangers. As if nothing ever happened between them. As if they haven’t exchanged enough emails that Adam was able to fool himself into believing that they were moving if not quite past everything that lay in their way, at least around it, towards something new and precious. It’s no less than Adam deserves. But knowing he has no right to expect anything better doesn’t stop the painful little clench in his chest every time Tony flashes him a polite smile or stares just past Adam’s head.  

The trip in from the airport to the hospital five days ago was the worst. Adam spent the flight from New Orleans to Paris oscillating between shock, sorrow, and almost giddy anticipation. His mentor was dying, but he was finally going to see Tony: living, breathing, beautiful Tony. And then Tony was there, but he wasn’t Tony. The man who picked Adam up at the airport may as well have been a hired driver holding a carboard sign with Adam’s name on it. They talked about the fucking weather and then when that topic was exhausted there was nothing but tense, painful silence. A tense painful silence that has been punctuated only by brief exchanges of banal pleasantries for five days in which he’s sure Tony is trying to avoid him. He just can’t figure out why.

Not that Tony doesn’t have a right to be furious with Adam, to hate him even. But Adam thought they were moving past that. Clearly he’d been reading too much into the few sentences Tony reluctantly sent him through email every few days. The forgiveness and tentative something he’d felt through those words was nowhere to be found in Paris. New Orleans has never felt so much like home.  

Anne Marie is the only one from the old days who is happy to see him. Well… happy isn’t the right word. She’d been polite but distant at first, but when Jean Luc passed Anne Marie broke down in Adam’s arms. Each time they’ve been in the same place since she’s immediately latched on to Adam as if he’s the only stable thing in the room. Ironic and inconvenient, but innocent and somehow comforting, so Adam lets her. What else is he going to do? He owes Jean Luc everything. He can at least give his mentor’s daughter whatever comfort he can.

After the funeral, however, Adam makes sure he escorts her to a car that doesn’t have room for both of them. He knows as he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze before shutting the door that she will likely return to his side as soon as they all arrive at the pub, but at least for five minutes he can…  Well…  Tony will be there, even if he’s acting as if they’re strangers. Adam’s grief wants to curl into Tony the way Anne Marie curls into Adam. At least for the next five minutes Tony can’t escape, can’t brush Adam off with some excuse about work or Anne Marie. For five minutes Adam can just exist in Tony’s orbit. He climbs into the passenger seat of Tony’s car, and grants himself a solid ten seconds to drink in Tony’s presence before fixing his eyes forward.

“It should be raining or something, shouldn’t it?”

Tony’s mouth quirks and his eyes for the split second they land on Adam’s are bright and familiar.

Adam’s stomach does a little flip.

“Anne Marie was glad you could stay for the funeral.” Tony’s tone is nonchalant. “She thought you might need to rush off back to America.”

“Rain would have just made everything worse, but you never imagine funerals being sunny.”

“The forecast was for sun all week.” There is a moment of silence and then Tony adds, “She sold the restaurant. I guess she told you that already.”

“You know I bought an umbrella yesterday, just figured I would need it.” Adam’s eyes stray to Tony’s face and he forces them forward again.

Tony sighs. “Jean Luc would have liked that it’s sunny. He never was one for rainy days.”

“She didn’t tell me about the restaurant.” 

“I don’t know who bought it.” Tony stops at a red light and turns, meeting Adam’s eyes. “It’s difficult to imagine the place without him.”

Adam swallows against a sudden lump in his throat. He nods, not trusting himself to speak.

The light goes green and Tony turns his full attention back to the road in front of them. “He always said you would be back.”

“What?” Adam’s voice comes out hoarse around the lump he can’t seem to swallow.

“Jean Luc, after you left, he always said you would be back.” Tony’s eyes dart to Adam’s face for only a moment, as if trying to gauge if he should say more. “He said you were an infuriating, cocky little shit, but that anyone who wrote off Adam Jones was as much of an idiot as Adam Jones himself.”

Tony’s hand releases the gear shift and moves as if to touch Adam before he withdraws it quickly. Adam sucks a deep breath in through his nose. “He always did have too much faith in people. Even if he was shit at compliments. He never did cut Anne Marie off. Should have, probably; might have straightened out sooner if she hadn’t had his money to fall back on.”

“Or she might have ended up dead like the sous chef from Chez Henri. He had good instincts.”

Adam wants to laugh or brush this whole line of conversation off and start talking about the weather again, anything to cut the tension coiled around him, but he can’t quite manage it. They’re finally _talking_ but it’s all fractured and it feels dangerous. They’re speaking of Paris, but Adam doesn’t know if he can mention them and Paris without Tony shutting down on him. So instead he stays silent and wishes Tony would just tell him where he stands.

He barely notices Tony smoothly maneuvering the car into a spot along the curb. It’s not until Tony turns off the engine and turns awkwardly in his seat to face Adam properly that he realized they’ve arrived.

“You’re not all bad Adam. And when it comes to food, you’re actually better than most.”

Adam finds the laugh he’s been searching for. It comes out more bitter than he would like.  

Tony drops his eyes and shakes his head. He mutters something Adam thinks is in German, it’s definitely not comprehensible, and runs an agitated hand through his hair. When he looks back up the intensity in his eyes sends a jolt of something like fear through Adam’s chest.

“You should go back to America. Open another restaurant. Make a life for yourself. It’s what he would want. It’s what you should want.”

The unspoken ‘It’s what _I_ want,’ settles heavy in Adam’s mind. Tony has never been able to be cruel. No wonder he responded to the constant barrage of emails rather than letting Adam slowly drive himself insane bashing his head against a wall of silence. “I don’t… I…” Adam shrugs and tries for a rueful smile, but he knows it comes off more like a grimace. “New Orleans isn’t home.”

“Neither is Paris.”

The truth of those three words cuts Adam like a knife. Without another word he flings the door open and steps out onto the curb. He doesn’t want to know what else Tony is going to say. Adam may be helpless in the face of his feelings for Tony, but he’s not an idiot. He knows rejection when he sees it.

“Give my apologies to Anne Marie.” Tony calls after his retreating back. “I’m sure you can find your own ride to the hotel.”

Adam turns once, drinking in the last glimpse of Tony he may ever have. “Have a nice life Tony Belardi.” 

He doesn’t turn back again. He doesn’t want to watch Tony drive away.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Severe illness of a parent, death of a parent,


	2. Au Revoir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Adam/Tony muscles are still a little rusty, but I wanted to get this second part up tonight before I second guessed myself into another year long hiatus. Please note the rating of this fic has changed. 
> 
> see end notes for additional trigger warnings for the chapter.

**Reece**

The bar booth they pile into after the funeral is just enough like the ones they used to decompress in after ever shift in the old days to give Reece a serious sense of de ja vu. Even down to the way Anne Marie won’t let go of Adam’s arm and the conspicuous absence of Tony. If it weren’t for the formal wear, and the beginnings of crow’s feet around most of their eyes, it could have been any night five years ago. But it wasn’t any night: Jean Luc was dead and all of them had moved on.

Reece is moving to London. He hadn’t told anyone yet. The opportunity is too new to jinx and besides, these people aren’t his family any longer. They haven’t been for years. Hell, he’d half believed the rumours the Adam died in Amsterdam, and after a few more drinks he might even admit he’d been a bit heartbroken over it.

“Well, Adam, going to tell us about your death and resurrection or do you like it when we guess?”

Adam glared over his glass of water (maybe the Adam he knew was dead after all). “I’ve been in New Orleans. Haven’t set foot in Amsterdam in a decade.”

Cheeky bugger. “Well that explains the alive thing then, but not how you got here. Unless…” He let his gaze sweep meaningfully from Adam to Anne Marie and back. “Has our Anne Marie been keeping a dirty little American secret all these years?”

Anne Marie glares at him with red rimmed eyes. “We just buried my father, Reece. Have you no class at all?”

“We didn’t all go to finishing school.” Max half mumbles around a mouthful of chips.

“Well we know _you_ didn’t.” Anne Marie’s voice is bland, but there’s the tiniest hint of a smile twisting up the corner of her mouth. “Papa always appreciated your bluntness. At least, when there was a closed door between you and the dining room.”

 Max inhales a mouthful of beer and spends the next thirty seconds coughing, but there’s a new lightness to the table. It might have as much to do with the steadily growing collection of empty glasses in the middle of the table as with Anne Marie, but whatever it is, the ice is broken.

Reece starts the story telling. Anne Marie opened the door and he takes full advantage of Max’s coughing fit to start on the most outrageous Max is a tactless hothead story he can think of.

“The bluntness he may have loved, but that temper…” Reece flashes a shark-like grin at Max. “Remember Phillipe?”

Adam’s face lights up in recognition, Max is still working the beer out of his windpipe, but he manages to raise two fingers at Reece anyway.

Reece turns to Anne Marie and continues. “Phillipe was a real sonofabitch. More ego than actual talent. Bad at team work. If he’d had twice the talent he might have given our little Adam a run for his money.”

“Fuck off Reece.” Adam says without much heat.

“The special was a pasta with scallops and the only sea food on the menu for the night. Simple. Pasta runs like clockwork, and because we were cooking up scallops one order at a time, we put one cook solely on seafood. That cook was Phillipe.”

Adam picks up the story with a smirk at Max. “Jean Luc wasn’t at the pass that night. Some important dinner –”

“My twentieth birthday,” Anne Marie’s eyes look misty at the memory. “I remember he disappeared into the kitchen at one point and came out with steam billowing from his ears.”

Reece chuckles. “Well Max was on the pass and Phillipe kept fucking up the timing on the scallops. Too early, overcooked, undercooked, late. Not every time, but enough. By second sitting, Max was beyond angry, so we switched stations. Adam took over the scallops and kept doing garnish and we gave Phillipe pasta. Easiest fucking station we could make for him.”

“Still couldn’t fucking get a plate of edible food to the pass.” Max growls.

“So our dear, sweet Max throws a knife at his head – at exactly the moment Jean Luc steps in to make sure everything is running as it should be.”

“It cleared his head by at least five centimetres.” Max protests sullenly. “He should have learned to time him cook correctly if he wanted to keep both his ears.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “And then Phillipe walked out and I had to work doubles for a week until we found someone who wasn’t completely incompetent to take his place.”

“And you loved every fucking second, you talented prick.” Reece finishes. It’s true. Adam was probably the best of them – except for the drinking, the drugs, the women… The man was a genius in the kitchen and a disaster as soon as the hob was switched off.

Max follows up with a story of his own about the time their meat vendor tried to sell Jean Luc waterlogged pork from which Anne Marie launches into a story about the very early days of Jean Luc’s when she was a child who spent her after school hours doing maths at a quiet table in the back. 

 “It’s too bad little Tony didn’t join us.” Max says after the waitress drops off another rounds of drinks. Reece has lost count of how many rounds they’ve had by now. “He knows all the best front of house stories.”

“Why didn’t Tony join us, Adam?” Reece asks, leaning both elbows on the table and giving Adam his most innocent expression. “I thought you two were close these days.”

“He had a headache.” Adam says mildly.

It’s a reasonable enough excuse, but Reece is sure there’s something more going on. Everyone with eyes (except perhaps Anne Marie) knew Tony was halfway in love with Adam Jones back in the Paris days. The poor boy had sleepwalked his way through work at least a full month after Adam went missing, looking every bit like a man with a broken heart. So learning it was Tony who invited Adam and picked him up at the airport was extremely intriguing.

“I should go.” Adam says, rising abruptly. “Early flight tomorrow and all.” He leans down and busses Anne Marie’s cheeks and waves stiffly to Max and Reece.

Oh yes, Reece thinks as he watches Anne Marie watch Adam leave. There is definitely something going on here. It’s too bad he’s off to London and he’ll probably never get to find out how it ends.

**Tony**

Tony arranges the tiny bottles of alcohol from the mini bar into perfect lines on the desk and proceeds to stare at them for more than twenty minutes before cracking open a tiny bottle of gin and drinking it straight from the absurdly tiny bottle. He is an idiot. Alcohol won’t change that fact, but it might dull the painful edges of it for the night. And tomorrow… well, tomorrow Adam will get on a plane and fly back to America and life will go back to normal. He’s suddenly glad he’s booked on the first plane out in the morning. He’s more than ready to leave Paris behind.

The next little bottle of gin goes down easier than the first. The last words Tony will probably ever hear from Adam Jones ringing in his head. _Have a nice life, Tony._ Should he be grateful it was at least a kind of goodbye? The third bottle thinks he probably should be. At least now when he doesn’t hear from Adam ever again, he knows it’s on purpose and not because Adam is probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

Tony tosses the three empty gin bottles in the general direction of the trash. Only one goes in. He finds he really doesn’t care. The bed is soft under him as he sinks back, staring up at the ceiling and doing his best not to think.

The alcohol helps. Tony hasn’t eaten since yesterday and the three ounces of gin have travelled straight to his head. He lets his mind drift, not focusing too hard on any of the memories that float across his consciousness. They’re mostly of the early days working for Jean Luc. When Adam was a bundle of eagerness and ego with no time for anything but the kitchen and his pursuit of greatness. Jean Luc had been so proud – a father couldn’t have been prouder. Tony hadn’t had a prayer. He was halfway in love with Adam by the end of his first week.  

He loses track of time, maybe even falls asleep. The knock on his door startles him off the end of the bed. He lands on his elbow with a thud and a curse. The person on the other side of his door knocks again, sharp and much louder than Tony thinks is strictly necessary.

“What?” he asks, flipping the lock and opening the door.

There’s a moment of complete silence as Tony blinks at the clear hallucination standing outside his hotel room. “…Adam?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For?” Tony leans against the door frame, faking a nonchalance he can’t quite feel.

“I overreacted. When you told me… well, let’s just say I was hoping for something I had no right to hope for.” Adam’s eyes don’t waver, but he shifts his weight in something like discomfort. “I’m sorry for storming off like that.”

Tony spent half a second trying to puzzle that out before shrugging and stepping back. “Want to come in?”

Adam’s lips quirk up in a relieved smile and he follows Tony into the room.    

The room suddenly feels much smaller and Tony is painfully aware of the evidence of his evening scattered on the carpet and lined in weirdly perfect rows on the desk. He mutters and apology and sweeps the small bottles off the desk and into the empty recycle bin – telling himself he can return them to the minifridge after Adam leaves for the night.

“It’s fine,” Adam says, picking up one of the empty gin bottles and tossing it in the trash can. “I just came from a pub, Tony. Your having a drink isn’t going to trigger a backslide.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing, just leans back against the desk feeling heat in his cheeks.

Adam takes a step towards him and then stops, standing awkwardly halfway into the room. “Look, I’ll let you get back to your night. I just… I’m flying out in a few hours and I didn’t want to leave things like that.” He looks down at the carpet as if suddenly fascinated by the swirled pattern. “The last time I left… that night… that morning…” His bright eyes flick up to Tony’s and then drop back to the floor. “That is one of the biggest regrets of my life.”

Tony recoils. That night… he’s thought about it so often. Always wondered why Adam left the way he did. Somehow never let himself consider Adam might have regretted it so deeply. “I’m sorry. You were…” His voice is tight, but he forces himself to continue. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that.” He fixes his eyes on the far corner of the room and forces himself to breathe.

“Wait… what?”

Tony can’t bring himself to look at Adam. He lets his eyes fall closed, the darkness of his eyelids making it easier to get the words out. “You were high, Adam. I wasn’t. I should have stopped it but…”

“But…?” Adam’s voice is closer.

“But I wanted it to be real.” Tony let the words out in a rush. “I knew it wasn’t, but I thought if it was my only chance to… to be with you, it would be worth it.”

“Tony.” Adam’s voice is soft. His fingers brush against Tony’s cheek. “I…”

Tony opens his eyes, meeting Adam’s. They’re so close Tony can see every one of Adam’s eye lashes. The man is impossibly gorgeous, and Tony’s heart is beating so hard he’s sure Adam can hear it.

And then Adam’s lips are on his and Tony’s head is static.   

**Adam**

It’s different from last time, kissing Tony. Last time was frantic, rushed, fueled by fear and frustration and coloured by the drugs coursing through his veins. This time Adam is wholly there and there’s no rush. He cups Tony’s face gently, keeps the kisses sweet close mouthed. His other hand migrates to Tony’s hips, keeping him close but not pressing into him in that frantic way he associated with one-night stands and morning after regrets.

There’s no end game here beyond this. Tony’s lips taste like juniper. They’re soft and pliant beneath Adam’s and he thinks he could do this forever.

Tony rests one hand against Adam’s chest, the other finding its way into Adam’s hair. His blunt fingernails run over Adam’s scalp sending tingles chasing down to his toes.

They make out like that for ages, breaking only to gasp quick breathes before coming together again. Their kisses slowly deepen, tension building between them until Adam can barely keep from rutting his cock against Tony’s leg like a horny teenager.

Eventually Tony breaks away long enough to mutter “Bed,” and shove Adam gently backwards. They tumble into the sheets, Tony ending up on top with one leg slotted between Adam’s and most of his weight braced on one elbow.

Adam pulls Tony’s shirt free of his trousers so he can slip his hands underneath, stroking against Tony’s sides and back as he reclaims Tony’s lips.

Tony arches into Adam’s touch, moaning deep in the back of his throat.

“Fuck,” Adam growls, dropping his hands to grab Tony’s ass and press their bodies even closer together.

Tony nips at Adam’s throat and grinds down against Adam’s aching cock. He presses a hand on Adam’s chest and sits up long enough to strip off his shirt and let Adam do the same before he’s back, nipping and kissing his way down Adam’s throat.

Adam paws restlessly at any piece of Tony he can reach while the other man sucks a nipple into his mouth. His hands work to undo Adam’s trousers.

“Tony... are you…?” Adam can barely from the words through the haze of his lust. He can barely process that he’s _here_ that Tony is straddling and making a concerted if slightly awkward attempt to get Adam’s cock out.  

Tony looks up at him with a feral grin. “I’m sure.” He manages to pull the zipped down without catching anything vital and then there are a few awkward moments while he pushes Adam’s trousers and boxers down to his knees.

Before Adam can protest the amount of clothing Tony is still wearing, Tony’s lips are wrapping around the head of his cock and then all Adam can do is swear and try not to thrust up into the sweet wet heat of Tony’s mouth.

Later, Adam falls asleep with a naked Tony curled against his chest feeling sated and something that might be happiness bubbling in his veins.

The sun is barely slanting through the window of Tony’s hotel room when Adam wakes. It isn’t until he rolls over and feels the crinkle of paper beneath his cheek that he remembers he’s in Tony’s bed and Tony should be here. Instead of a warm, naked Tony, he finds a single sheet of hotel stationary.

> Adam,
> 
> Didn’t want to wake you. Thanks for last night. Have a safe flight.
> 
> Tony

He reads the note three times, his brain scrambling to find a shred of hope in the short line of text. But no, Tony’s meaning is clear. Last night was fun, but it wouldn’t be happening again.

Adam rises, gathers his scattered clothes and makes it back to his own room on autopilot. He has an hour to get to the airport before he’ll be in danger of missing his flight. Long enough to eat breakfast if he had any appetite. He doesn’t, so instead he packs his things and calls a cab, all the while refusing to think too hard about the fact he’s fleeing Paris for the second time in a row with the taste of Tony on his lips.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: drinking in front of an alcoholic, mentions of workplace violence, using alcohol to cope, consensual sexual contact under influence of alcohol


End file.
